Origination

In the post-crisis housing market appraisal reports are becoming as important as credit scores, requiring lenders and servicers to be more inventive with the tools they use to assess real estate value risks.

It appears that one of the chief enforcement tools of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the use of the horizontal audit.

Now that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are profitable again and getting closer to paying back all the financial aid they received from Treasury, it is going to make it harder to pass far-reaching GSE reforms.

Industry leaders participated in a roundtable discussing the latest trends in mortgage fraud and what lenders and servicers can do to detect illegal loan applications they receiver from a borrower.

The California Association of Realtors said that in the first quarter only 44% of buyers could buy a median-priced existing single-family home in the state.

Farmer Mac reported first-quarter net income of $16.2 million, which is a decline from 1Q12’s $22.2 million.

The refinancing boom is stressing lender capacity, according to a Federal Reserve governor, and it provides a partial explanation for the low level of purchase-mortgage originations.

A real estate arm of KeyCorp has agreed to purchase more than $100 billion of servicing rights on commercial and multifamily loans from Bank of America.

If Washington does not continue to support tax policies that encourage housing, it could have disastrous consequences.

A former loan officer at Wilmington Trust in Delaware is facing jail time after pleading guilty this week to bank fraud.